The Daily Echo has printed a readers letter as a story on it's website, in which the writer demands that Sam Allardyce be immediately summoned to save Saints, I am not quite sure how he thinks this will be an improvement !
Before I get on to Sam Allardyce I have to say that the writer of this letter, a man called Bob Barton, assuming this is his real name and not a pseudonym, makes some very good points about Mauricio Pellegrino, some I agree with wholeheartedly, some less so.
"Pellegrino is clueless. His selections range from blind faith (Tadic, Forster, Redmond) through panic (Boufal, Holjberg, Hoedt, Yoshida) and finally to the bizarre (JWP on with three minutes remaining — or just maybe he noticed we had won a corner and had screwed up every other one)."
Although to call Pellegrino clueless is a bit harsh, I cannot disagree with the comments about Pellegrino's selections, they are becoming increasingly bizarre with no logic attached to them at times.
But I do disagree with him abut the need for Les Reed to hit the panic button at least just yet, Bob Barton thinks we are already doomed under Pellegrino, that we have wasted a potentially easy start and now we are going to pay the price, but that is pure scaremongering and has no more basis that it wold if he had also suggested that Burnley would win the League because they had beaten some top sides and with an easy run coming up would soon top the league.
It cannot be denied that we have wasted opportunities, indeed if we had beaten Burnley on Saturday then we would now sit 7th only 3 points off of 5th place, if we had won 4-0 that would not have signified that Mauricio Pellegrino was getting it totally right and we were heading for another 6th place finish, anymore than the 1-0 defeat means we should veer completely the other way and use this result as a barometer that would see us relegated.
Therefore after only 11 games Mr Barton wants Les Reed to press the panic button and bring in Sam Allardyce !
But has he really thought about the long term affects of doing this ? is this really a step forward for Southampton Football Club ? Allardyce saved Crystal Palace from relegation last season, but he was called in because they were desperate, we are not in that position, we are facing mid table obscurity, we are not in the bottom three we are a long way off panic and there lies a problem, Mr Barton is part of a new breed of fan who seem to judge everything by the last few games, there is no thought of consequence other than the next few games, that is wrong there needs to be a long term view.
Sam Allardyce has made a living in the past few years as something of a firefighter for football clubs, the go to man if you are in trouble, but his record since leaving Bolton ten years ago is not great, sacked at Newcastle after only 5 months, he then embarked on what would be a familiar pattern, called in by Blackburn he turned things round and kept them up, sacked a couple of years later, at West Ham he stayed four years but his reign there was not that popular with the fans with a revolving door of players in and out and Allardyce after scraping promotion through the play offs, not quite able to kick West Ham on despite a big big budget.
He saved Sunderland from relegation next, but he wasn't setting the World alight.
The England managers debacle followed, then his short period at Selhurst park.
Newcastle, Blackburn, West Ham, Sunderland & Palace all have one thing in common, that is after Allardyce they were in total disarray and have never quite recovered, that should tell us what he is about, yes he can manage a short term fix, rally the troops and his methods work for a few months, but he is not a long term answer, ultimately he can get players playing for brief periods and then his methods dont work.
Also at each club his style relied on getting in a big centre forward and hoofing it to him, each of these clubs had that type of player to hand as with Benteke last season at Palace, we do not, so it would be pointless (Perhaps literally) bringing him in now as he doesn't have the players at hand to do the job he does, if Saints did bring him in we would need to wait till the window opened in January and give him a big budget.
But what Mr Barton should realise is that Saints do things for the long term, perhaps there will be blips, but they stay patient and get their rewards in the longer term, why would we want to throw the past few years of a very definite plan for the club formulated by Katharina Liebherr's backroom team and get in a manager who will destroy it in months.
That would be pure folly, but if we want to be another Crystal Palace or Sunderland then this is the way to go. Football these days seems to be more abot change for change's sake than looking at a long term picture, we have got ourself into a position where a poor season for us is 8th, a Wembley Cup Final but no European qualification, that is a season that is far better than around 95% of every other one in our 132 years of existence, that should tell us all something.
I am not saying that everything is rosy at St Mary's, I am not saying that we have the right man in Pellegrino, what I m saying is that whatever we should do, it should not be the blind panic Bob Barton is proposing, but a measured plan to go forward.
The board are silent on this and that is the way it should be, do things quietly and in private.
Mr Barton also says
"After more dismal performances (despite having a season ticket I would be less depressed by not going at all) I now dread going to home games."
I know how he feels, I dread going to home games due to the comments of those around me waiting for Forster and Redmond to put a foot (or glove) wrong so they can scream abuse at them, mind you I should not be surprised, two seasons ago the same people were doing exactly the same, but then it was Pelle and sadio Mane who they were targeting.
Finally in his piece Mr Barton makes a plea to Les Reed that he should have his money refunded, that he is not getting value for money or because the goods are faulty.
Since when do we follow football teams for value for money ?
He Says
"If not, Les, please can I have a refund on the grounds of failure to provide any value for money or even faulty goods ?"
Most seasons in the last 35 years have not been ones of value for money, the 1990's and the late noughties stand out as two periods when we turned up at The Dell/St Mary's in the call of duty, not to be entertained or to get value for money.
Back in both those periods we had no strategy it was a case of manager after manager and we paid the price, I don't want to see this club return to that way of things, I try to see the bigger picture, but more importantly I see that patience has paid dividends.
Ironically our best and most stable period in the clubs history has been the last four seasons, each one saw a top 8 finish, something we had never done four times in a row before, but incredulously it has also seen meltdown in the supporter base each and every year, have some of us lost sight of where we have come from and what we are trying to achieve ?
Apologies to Bob Barton, I don't know him, perhaps he did not expect to see a short letter to the Daily Echo suddenly be made into a news story that now pops up all over the World, I'm sure he is a dedicated Saints fan and perhaps does not seek this infamy that the Echo has now given him.
Finally shame on the Daily Echo for turning a readers letter into a full blown headline, if i wrote to them and complained that my bin hadn't been emptied in the last two weeks, would they make this a news story ? No they wouldn't and although this is a bigger issue, this is after all a readers letter, newspapers get loads of these every week, usually they used to have letters pages for them rather than let the readers write the stories !